GST Council levies 5% GST on unbranded food items
Grain Rice and Oilseeds Merchant Association (Groma) Protests Against Levy of 5% GST on unbranded food items
Demands Withdrawal of this GST or Else Would Protest
by Prashant Kapadia/NHN
In the meeting of the GST Council chaired by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, the decision to impose 5 percent GST on various essential food items like rice, pulses, flour included in unbranded cereals has angered small and medium traders.
Warning for Protest if decision is not taken back.
According to the decision, GST will be implemented from July 18. With this decision, there is a lot of anger among the small and medium traders of the country. While the Prime Minister of the country had said that GST will not be levied on various essential food items like rice, dal, flour, milk, curd.
Sharad Kumar Maru, president of Grain Rice and Oilseeds Merchant Association Vashi, Navi Mumbai (Groma), has described this as a Tughlaqi Order of the Center and demanded its withdrawal, otherwise all the traders will agitate all over the country, Maru stated that there are 6500 mandis in the country which will unite and launch a movement against this decision.
Inflation is at its peak, it will increase further, the small trader will have to hire an accountant to fix the account book of GST, he will not be able to bear the burden of this expenditure, the price of food grains will increase and the burden of inflation on the common man will increase, anyway The burden of inflation has increased among the people. For example, tur dal is in Rs 6000, and after including 5% GST is Rs 300 and the cost of transport and other expenses will be very difficult to bear from the trader to the common man.
On the other hand, Navi Mumbai Groma Secretary Bhimji Bhanushali also expressed strong objection to this saying that only 5 percent people pay GST in the whole country. Rest 95 percent people are not registered, they do business of unbranded food grains and the GST was not applicable on them till date. But all this is happening with the connivance of the corporate sector.
Bhanushali said that on one hand the central government is distributing ration free of cost, on the other hand it is increasing the burden of high inflation on traders and common man by imposing 5 percent GST on unbranded food grains. Whereas the Prime Minister of India told that we shall not levy GST on rice, dal, flour, milk, curd etc., then why the central government is doing this.
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